'Inventing Anna' fact check: Did Anna Delvey really steal a jet? And is she still friends with Neff?

Spoiler alert! Contains plot details from Netflix limited series "Inventing Anna" (now streaming).

Scammer season is in full swing.

Hot on the heels of Netflix's "The Tinder Swindler," with shows about Elizabeth Holmes (Hulu's "The Dropout") and WeWork (Apple TV+'s "WeCrashed") coming next month, another miniseries is captivating viewers with the stranger-than-fiction story of Anna Sorokin.

Sorokin is the subject of Netflix's "Inventing Anna," a partly fictionalized retelling of how a young Russian woman posing as a German heiress named Anna Delvey conned New York's elite out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Produced by Shonda Rhimes, the nine-episode series is based on a 2018 New York magazine article by Jessica Pressler, who is renamed Vivian Kent and played by Anna Chlumsky ("Veep") in the show.

Under the guise of starting a new business – the so-called Anna Delvey Foundation, an exclusive private arts club – Sorokin (played by "Ozark" star Julia Garner) convinced banks and countless associates to foot the bill for expensive restaurants, hotels, trips and events, all with the promise that she'd repay them. She was eventually arrested and found guilty of grand larceny and theft of services in 2019, and was released from prison last year. (Sorokin, 31, is currently in ICE detention and faces deportation to Germany.)

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Here are a few of our biggest questions after binge-watching the series:

Did Anna actually steal a jet?

Throughout the season, Vivian races against the clock to finish reporting the Sorokin story before she gives birth (a plot that was partially exaggerated for the show, Pressler told InStyle). She enlists the help of veteran journalists in the fictional Manhattan magazine's newsroom – nicknamed "Scriberia" – to aid in Sorokin's investigation.

Midway through the season, the Scriberia reporters are shocked to learn that Sorokin once "stole a plane." Although this is technically true, it wasn't some "Mission: Impossible"-style feat where she swiped a jet off the tarmac and piloted it herself.

As depicted in the show, Sorokin was introduced socially to Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade, a company that offers private and shared charter flights. Seeking to attend Warren Buffett's annual investment conference, Sorokin booked a $35,000 jet from New Jersey to Omaha, Nebraska, "by sending them a forged confirmation for a wire transfer from Deutsche Bank," according to Pressler's reporting. The payment never came.

Blade's chief financial officer, Kathleen McCormack, testified during Sorokin's trial that the company thought she was good for the money, according to Rolling Stone.

"We’ve let people slide in the past, quite frankly, and they’ve paid," McCormack said. Wiesenthal "had briefly socially run into her, and him knowing her through those circles, we felt she was good for payment, so we booked her for the flight."

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Is that really how Anna talks?

One of the most striking parts of Garner's performance as Sorokin is her unusual accent and vocal fry. In interviews with the actual Sorokin, Garner's speech sounds very similar. The so-called "SoHo Grifter" was born in Russia, raised in Germany, lived in America and "loved to watch 'Gossip Girl,' " Garner told W Magazine, which may have contributed to the confusing combination of sounds.

"I don't think it's off," Sorokin said of Garner's accent, in a recent interview with Insider. "I think she kind of falls in and out of it. Some of it she gets right – but not everything. ... I don't feel like I sound like that. It's like when you hear yourself on TV and it's not really the voice you hear in your head when you speak."

Did she know Billy McFarland and Martin Shkreli?

Sorokin's fellow convicted scammer Billy McFarland – founder of the failed Fyre Festival – is name-dropped repeatedly throughout the series. He even appears in the fourth episode (portrayed by Ben Rappaport), as he brags about his idea for the now-infamous luxury event, which left hundreds of influencers and partygoers stranded on a Bahamian island in 2017.

The two fraudsters are depicted briefly in "Inventing Anna" sharing a downtown New York loft, which is true to life: According to Page Six, Sorokin lived for roughly four months at the headquarters of McFarland's now-defunct credit card company Magnises in 2013.

Sorokin also socialized with Martin Shkreli, the notorious "pharma bro" currently in prison for fraud. Shkreli (Will Stephen) appears during a party scene in the show's fifth episode, bragging about owning an advanced copy of Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter V."

"Anna introduced Shkreli as a 'dear friend,' although it was really the only time they’d met," Pressler wrote. In a letter from jail, Shkreli told Pressler, "Anna did seem to be a popular 'woman about town' who knew everyone. Even though I was nationally known, I felt like a computer geek next to her."

Did Rachel Williams help police arrest Anna?

In the show, Anna burns bridges with most people in her inner circle, including personal trainer/life coach Kacy Duke (Laverne Cox) and Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams (Katie Lowes). The series' sixth episode – and Williams' 2019 book, "My Friend Anna" – details their Morocco vacation from hell, when Williams charged $62,000 to her credit cards after Sorokin assured she'd pay her back.

In late 2017, Sorokin failed to show up in court on misdemeanor theft of services charges. Williams revealed in her memoir that she was contacted by New York authorities to help apprehend Sorokin, who was then at Passages treatment center in Malibu, California. Williams texted Sorokin and invited her to lunch under false pretenses, knowing police were waiting for Sorokin outside.

"Was I afraid that she would discover my involvement in her arrest? Most definitely," Williams wrote. "But that wasn’t the only reason. As Anna had done with me, I wanted her to believe my lie."

Are Neff and Anna still friends?

One person who sticks by Sorokin's side throughout "Inventing Anna" is Neffatari Davis, or Neff (Alexis Floyd), an aspiring filmmaker working as a hotel concierge. Sorokin stayed for a month and a half without paying her bill at the 11 Howard boutique hotel in New York, where she quickly earned the favor of staffers for her $100 tips. She soon ingratiated herself with Davis and promised to fund her film project.

"She’d bring food down, or a glass of extra-dry white wine, and settle near Neff’s desk to chat," Pressler wrote. "She could be oddly ill-mannered for a rich person ... but to Neff, it didn't come across as mean-spirited. More like she was some kind of old-fashioned princess who’d been plucked from an ancient European castle and deposited in the modern world."

With no working credit card on file, and promised wire transfers that never materialized, Sorokin racked up a bill of over $30,000 at 11 Howard and was eventually locked out of her room. Even as she moved hotels and eventually went to prison, Davis continued to support Sorokin.

"Anna never scammed me and I never saw her not being legit," Davis recently told Bustle. "Anna is my friend and always will be. We had to get to know each other again and develop healthy boundaries. We have blocked and unblocked each other, cried, and laughed. I get her."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Inventing Anna': Was Anna Delvey close with Fyre Festival founder?